Memory consolidation and inducible nitric oxide synthase expression during different sleep stages in Parkinson disease

Abstract

Background: Parkinson disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor and nonmotor dysfunctions, which include sleep disturbances. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is associated with numerous physiologic changes such as memory consolidation. Compelling evidence suggests that nitric oxide (NO) is crucial to both sleep regulation and memory consolidation. In our study, we explored changes in biologic molecules during various sleep stages and the effects of sleep on memory consolidation in PD.

Methods: Ten PD patients and 14 volunteers without PD participated in our study. The gene expression of inducible NO synthase (iNOS) in all sleep stages was measured using realtime polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based on polysomnography (PSG)-guided peripheral blood sampling. In addition, the efficiency of memory consolidation during the sleep of the participants was measured using the Wechsler Memory Scale, third edition (WMS-III).

Results: The iNOS expression increased in all sleep stages among the PD patients compared to the control participants, in whom iNOS expression decreased during REM sleep. Regarding memory consolidation, the performance of the controls in logic memory and the patients in visual reproduction tasks improved after sleep.

Conclusions: The iNOS synthase expression was different from control participants among PD patients, and the expression was dissimilar in various sleep stages. Sleep might enhance memory consolidation and there are different memory consolidation profiles between PD and control participants demonstrating distinct memory consolidation profiles.

Keywords: Memory consolidation; NO; Parkinson disease; Polysomnography; REM sleep; iNOS.